


blue raft on the blue sea

by smokesque



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Homesick Lance (Voltron), M/M, Team Fluff, Team as Family, This is what I'm doing with my life, based on a The Front Bottoms song, i don't understand what you're saying, i hope you're happy mum, just read the damn thing, listen i don't know how to tag, literally this is just fluff, well kind of, what do you mean klance isn't canon, what to heck, when do i ever write pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7510912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokesque/pseuds/smokesque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith’s fingertips leave Lance’s nerves running miles from where they touch at his hip. Lance brushes his lips to the base of Keith’s neck with the kind of tender slowness that suggests they have all the time in the world. And he knows he would be okay with never returning to Earth again because this is his home now. This is his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blue raft on the blue sea

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from ['maps'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbT6qUpROnI) by the front bottoms
> 
> ((can you tell i was listening to them when i came up with the idea for this?))
> 
> i stayed up later than i should have writing this dumb fic and my editing is verging on non-existent. i threw my sleep schedule out the window for 2k words. i hope you're fucking grateful.
> 
> all mistakes are my own.

It starts the first time Lance ducks into Keith’s quarters on the way back from solo training with Coran. He’s not sure what makes him do it but he knows he said some pretty nasty stuff over breakfast that morning and he likes to check up.

Keith is sitting cross-legged on his bunk and, although it’s on the verge of getting late, he doesn’t look near ready to sleep. He also doesn’t seem alarmed when Lance slips into the room without announcing himself.

Lance has only ever seen his own quarters (and Hunk’s; that one time he tried to hide from Allura and Lance was sent to remind him he wasn’t behaving like a paladin), but he’s not surprised by the pretty standard layout – the same as his own and similar to what he was used to back at the garrison. He’s not even surprised that Keith keeps his in far neater conditions.

What shocks him into a standstill is the map hung across the bare wall opposite Keith’s bed. It’s covered in multi-coloured pins and strings chasing each other all over the galaxy. Lance takes a few steps closer until his nose is a breath away from brushing the paper. He can see tiny pricks where pins have been removed or shifted. There’s a sheet of paper stuck next to the map with a list longer than Lance’s arm. (He checks.) Each item on the list has been highlighted in a different colour and Lance has no doubt every colour corresponds to a pin on the map.

“I’m going to see the entire universe.”

Lance flinches, his hand halfway to tracing over the map, when Keith speaks. He turns around without bothering to hide the way his mouth has fallen slightly open.

“How- When did you have time to plan all this?”

“Too many years spent with no one to talk to, I guess.” Keith shrugs like it’s nothing. Lance could punch himself for asking. “I’ve been putting the map together between missions and training sessions but I already knew where I was going to go.”

“Where are you going to go?” Lance let’s his body shift back to the map. He doesn’t recognise any of the locations. Is Earth on here? Does Keith want to go home as much as Lance does?

“Everywhere.”

At some point, Keith had stood up and suddenly the breath of his voice is fire on the back of Lance’s neck. He instinctively leans into Keith’s shoulder.

“You’ve got it all figured out, huh? Your entire future is on this wall.”

“Well, that’s what I thought.”

Lance isn’t sure but he thinks he hears Keith’s voice crack. He twists so that Keith can lean against him instead and lifts his hand to ghost over Keith’s spine. He doesn’t leave it there because he’s scared and Keith isn’t folding into the touch the way Lance had kind of hoped he would.

“Everything’s changing, Lance. This… this Voltron thing has happened and I can’t just leave any more and- Well, and I have a family now. I can’t leave my family. I’ve never had one before.”

Lance is almost always proud to be Keith’s family. The team – the paladins and Allura and even Coran – are the closest thing Lance has to his family on Earth, but to Keith they’re everything. And Lance is _so_ proud to call his team family. But Keith’s words cause a splinter in Lance’s chest and undo him from the inside out. He wants to be Keith’s family forever but he can’t be the reason Keith has his dream stolen from him.

“You can still see the universe, Keith. Someday you’ll go everywhere. I know you will.”

This time when Lance brings his hand up, it’s to place it firmly on the small of Keith’s back. Keith still doesn’t fold into it but Lance isn’t moving.

“I can’t. I can’t be alone again. Not like I was before.”

The splinter twists and Lance feels like throwing up his guts.

“So we’ll go together. I’ll see the universe with you. Like family.”

Lance doesn’t remember Keith crying, but the shoulder of his training shirt is wet when he returns to his own quarters. They don’t talk about it any more than that but Lance has made up his mind. He doesn’t put up a map because he hasn’t got the time and, if he’s being honest, he just can’t be bothered. He finds a ripped napkin though and writes down his plans.

_Defeat Zarkon. Save the galaxy. Parade. See the universe with Keith._

His entire future on this wall. His entire future aligned with Keith’s.

-

They’re in Lance’s bunk three weeks later and apparently three weeks does a lot for a person because Keith now folds into the ghost of Lance’s touch. Lance’s shirt is somewhere in the mess on his floor, probably heaped with Keith’s jacket, but Lance has never cared less about hygiene because his nose is pressed into the dip of Keith’s collar bone and he feels warm inside and all over.

“Do you ever want to go back to Earth?”

The question has been on Lance’s lips since he saw the map for the first time. He still wonders if Earth is one of Keith’s pins, marked for a trip back home. It presses against his mind when he can’t sleep at night. If he’s travelling the universe with Keith will they ever go back to Earth? With all the places they have to see, will they have time for Lance’s home? Lance’s family?

“Not really. Not like you and Hunk do.”

Lance tilts his head back but he can’t make eye contact with Keith. His vision is blocked by the slightly stubbly underside of Keith’s jaw.

“You don’t miss it? You don’t miss home?”

“It wasn’t really my home,” Keith says and it’s so nonchalant that it shouldn’t matter but every word that comes out of Keith’s mouth has started to matter to Lance far more than it should. He can’t help the way he tries to shift out of Keith’s grasp, ducking beneath the arm wrapped over his shoulder. Keith tugs him closer instead and buries his face in Lance’s hair before he speaks again.

“This is my home. You are my home. You and the team and the lions. I don’t want to go back to Earth because everything I need is right here.”

Lance doesn’t have anything to say to that. Keith is right. There is no reason for him to return. But Lance thought he might be at least a little sentimental about the planet he came from. Sure, Lance has his family to go back to, but he also misses cobbled streets and grassy fields and the dirt in his back garden. He misses Earth for the planet, not just the people.

“Can we at least go back to Arus?”

It’s not the same as going home, but they have memories there. If it’s the closest he’ll get, Lance will take it.

“It’s supposed to be places we haven’t seen yet,” Keith huffs, but there’s a laugh in his voice and he taps Lance’s nose gently as he shifts to lie properly on the pillow. “We’ll go back to Earth too, okay? Wherever you want. I swear.”

Keith’s fingertips leave Lance’s nerves running miles from where they touch at his hip. Lance brushes his lips to the base of Keith’s neck with the kind of tender slowness that suggests they have all the time in the world. And he knows he would be okay with never returning to Earth again because this is his home now. This is his family.

-

“The distress call is coming from somewhere just past Drule,” Coran informs them, tapping at the screen in front of him.

“Where’s Drule?” Pidge asks as they peer around Allura to get a good look at the map she’s brought up. Allura points out where they’re headed, an area of unknown space beyond a large, dark planet.

“We probably shouldn’t stop at Drule. It would be better if we passed by unseen,” she says and she sounds far too tired. Lance wonders how long it will be until Shiro or Coran tells her to return to her chambers. He wants to make a bet with Hunk over whose paternal instincts will kick in first but he’s wary of his proximity to Shiro’s fist.

“Why’s that?” Keith asks and the sound jolts Lance out of his thoughts immediately.

“I don’t know what the situation is at the moment but I imagine it’s under Galra control. We’d be best not to even come close enough to see Drule while Zarkon has his current level of power.”

Lance’s gaze finds Keith’s within seconds and he raises his eyebrows. Keith nods slightly, leaving a smile to spread over Lance’s face.

“I’ll add it tonight,” he says and five faces turn to stare at him.

“Huh?”

“Add what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Add it where?”

“Keith?”

“Nothing.” Keith grins and turns to watch space pass them by, his arms folded across his chest. Lance mirrors the smile with his hands shoved in his pockets.

Nothing, huh? It’s the biggest nothing of his life.

-

They’re connected as Voltron when Lance realises it, held together by the joints of their lions and the beats of their hearts. Keith is yelling at him not to try another kick, Pidge is repeating information they all know already, Shiro is trying to quiet them all down without raising his voice and Hunk’s sobs are causing static to jolt down the connection and Lance, one hand tensed ready to pull his lion into position, realises just like that.

His brain slows down for a millisecond too long and then Keith is yelling at him for not doing the kick and he’s yelling at Keith for not making any sense and Hunk has reached hyperventilation point and none of it matters, not one bit, because everything suddenly feels so right.

He doesn’t tell them until they’re back in the ship and huddled in front of the window together. They’re swathed in blankets and Coran has made some Altean drink that no one except Hunk is drinking. It’s supposed to be great for strength revival, but whatever. Keith’s hand keeps brushing Lance’s under the blanket they are sharing and Lance feels about as strong as he’s ever been.

Shiro keeps piling more blankets on top of them – because it’s just _that_ cold – until Pidge grabs his arm and forces him to sit between them and Hunk. Keith throws one of the extra blankets Shiro’s way and passes another over to Allura.

Lance feels ridiculously warm, sandwiched between his teammates, and it’s then that he tells them.

The words feel like melted chocolate on the tip of his tongue, sweet and warm and welcoming. He lets them spill out in too many unspoken syllables and they crowd the room in swarms of fireflies. Light wraps Lance in its open arms and he breathes in the warmth all around him.

It smells like metal and sweat and green goop and home.

“I never want this to end.”

It could almost count as a nice moment until Lance breaks the spell.

“Not fighting Zarkon. I mean, you know, that should really end. Because he’s dangerous and all. Plus I bet we’ll get a parade afterwards. Man, I wonder what kind of food we’ll have. Anyway, I just mean I don’t want to stop fighting with all of you. I don’t want to stop forming Voltron because, I know I can really kick ass by myself, but when it’s all of us I feel like I can kick ass _and_ butt. Although they’re really the same thing I guess. But, all I’m saying is, you guys are my family and it’d really blow if we had to stop doing this. Y’know?”

It’s quiet after that. For all of five seconds. Lance’s ears ring with the voices clamouring in the still air. He’s pretty sure Pidge is making fun of him and Hunk might be crying again. Shiro leans over to clap him on the shoulder, Coran nods wisely with a twirl of his moustache and Allura sends a smile his way that would make his legs turn to jelly in his boots if he was standing up.

And underneath the blanket, Keith’s fingers find their way to interlock with Lance’s and he presses a smile into Lance’s shoulder. It doesn’t matter how far they go or if they never come back. It doesn’t matter how insignificant they are or if anyone even notices they’ve gone. Lance would sail the universe as many times as it took to get Keith to hold his hand like that every day.


End file.
